Should you buy an ebook to learn how to make money online?

There are thousands of ebooks for sale online that promise to teach you how to make money online. People post ebooks for sale on popular online money making forums. Some claim that they now earn a living from once reading an ebook and putting its tactics to use. Lies, they’re all lies. 99.9% of ebooks are scams. Not exactly scams, but just a compilation of information that you can easily find online for free. You might think it’s worth paying $50 for organized, step-by-step information, but the truth is that there are websites where you can get all of this information for free, also in an organized manner.

What most ebooks contain is re-written basic information. They don’t contain any “secrets” like they all promise. It’s just organized information, with affiliate links plastered all over. That means more money to the author of the ebook. When you click on the links to sign up with advertising companies, the author of the ebook gets commission. This is just one reason why you can get the same quality of information, or even better, online for free. People write guides on making money online and just use these affiliate links as a way to get paid for the work of putting together the information.

Take ProBlogger for instance. Now he sells ebooks, but unlike everyone else, his ebooks are high quality. Why? I’m guessing because all the content in the book started out as a post on the website. And the fantastic posts on making money online still remain on the website. So you can still get all the information for free, without wasting money on an ebook.

The thing about ebooks is that it’s a relatively quick way for someone to make some cash. You can write an ebook by rewriting several articles, and put it up for sale somewhere. But when people make this information available online for free, they create long-term income from advertising and affiliate links. Usually if someone is in it for the long term, they have higher quality content to begin with.

The point here is that while a very, very small percentage of ebooks about making money online are good and filled with a great compilation of information, most ebooks are trash and a waste of your hard earned money. You can find this information in forums, websites, blogs, and anywhere online. All ebooks are in effect identical because again, they are just compilations of general ideas and money-making methods. Invest the money you would have otherwise spent on an ebook, and find the information you need online. Google makes the best ebook.